I shut the journal and looked up. The sunlight in the room had gotten more yellow, dimmer. Late afternoon. Damn, how long had I been up here? I chucked the book and all the other odds and ends back into the drawer, which I slipped back. Kelly probably wasn’t going to start snooping, but better everything stay the way I found it just in case. A quick tour of the bedroom turned up nothing beyond Trask’s apparent ability to wear holes into all of his socks. Random prodding at floorboards and molding on my way out showed an outstanding level of craftsmanship and zero secret compartments. I cursed my wasted time as I locked the door again.
I bounced the key in my pocket, wondering how I’d get it back into Mrs. Gaines’s possession without her noticing or getting Fran involved again. Did I need to? It wasn’t like she was going to use a copied key anymore, not unless she wanted to start a fling with Richard. The other option was to dump it somewhere. What would a random key in the middle of the woods matter?
Random like a piece of clear glass. Much stranger than footprints, come to think of it. Broken glass didn’t spring out of the dirt on its own. Beverage bottle? Medication? Why would anyone bring those out there? There was a possibility the glass had been part of a distilling apparatus, but why would it have appeared months after bootlegging was no longer profitable?
I passed the sugaring mill and nearly gagged on the sweet smell. It stuck in my lungs like tar. If I ever got out of this town, I was never going to have maple syrup again.
As I approached the house, I noticed a small figure on the ground on one of the grass patches near the street. Richard, perhaps, collapsed? A chill curled around my shoulders. But no. By the time I’d taken a few steps, the figure had resolved itself into Pearl, surrounded by various toys having a tea party. I hurried to her.
“What’re you doing out here?” I exclaimed. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“School ended a while ago, and Mr. Sev said I could go out and play.”
“By yourself?”
“He said if I stayed in the yard, it was okay. He said he’d be cooking if I needed anything.”
I was going to kill him. Leaving Pearl alone outside with a murderer and God knew what else on the loose? “Well, time to come in.” Ignoring her protest, I swept two of her toys up with one hand. “Pick up the teacups and come in now.”
She scrambled to grab the small pieces of ceramic. I waited for her to finish before I marched her back toward the house. I shooed her in and shut the door behind us.
“Go up to your room, please,” I said.
She hovered next to me in the hall. “Why?”
Because I’m about to rip the stuffing out of Sev, and I don’t want you hearing it. “Because I said so.”
“That’s not fair!”
“I never said it was fair. Now go or I’ll be—” I caught myself. What had I been going to say, that I’d belt her? My insides curled up at the very idea. Not my idea, my dad’s. Her dad’s. The idea of angry men everywhere. Men I didn’t want to be like. “Go or I’ll tell Bella not to give you any more new toys.”
Pearl’s face twisted into an exaggerated visage of anger, and she huffed before stomping her way up the stairs. Just as she got to the top, Sev came hurrying out of the kitchen. Apparently, he’d heard the pocket-sized argument.
“What has she done?” he asked in confusion.
I grabbed his hand more forcefully than I’d meant to and dragged him back into the kitchen. Hopefully, Pearl wouldn’t hear us at this distance. Daisy skittered out of the way, my stalking steps almost crushing her tail.
I spun to face Sev. “What were you thinking”—the words came out of my mouth as almost a growl—“letting her play all the way out there alone?”
His eyes widened in alarm. “Why, where was she? In the street?”
“Almost on Main.”
The distress turned back to confusion. “But that’s less than fifty feet away.”
“Yeah, and that’s forty-nine fucking feet too far.”
“You can’t be serious. There’s nothing out there—”
“First of all, there are bears. Second, there’s a murderer out there—”
“Bears would not be in our yard. And the murder has nothing to do with her. Why should whoever killed Mr. Trask want to hurt a little girl who wasn’t even there when it happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll see something. Or hear something. And then she talks.” My voice cracked as I lowered it. “That’s why Emma and Logan decided to off Martin. Pearl got to talking, and they figured he knew too much and would piece it together, so they killed him.” I was almost in tears now. “What if someone doesn’t like the questions I’m asking and decides to take it out on her? Or you?”
Sev didn’t answer for a moment, just stared at me. God, why couldn’t I see his thoughts on his face like he could apparently see mine? Slowly he said, “We brought her with us because you wanted her to have a more normal life, yes? So, you should not stop her from being a child because you’re afraid.”
Afraid? Oh, I was way beyond afraid. I was dancing somewhere between petrified and about to throw up. And not just afraid. Guilty, depressed, adrift. Missing Martin and Donnie more than words could say. Paranoid that my nosiness was going to get us all killed. I was falling through space, and there was nothing to hold on to. Nothing except a rag doll and a teddy bear apparently.
“Alex?”
My attention snapped back to Sev. This time I could read the concern and confusion in his expression. I swallowed.
“You’re right,” I murmured. “Sorry.”
“You should tell Pearl, not me.”
“Oh, right.”
Almost absently, I turned to go upstairs, thinking of all the things I needed to apologize to Pearl for. Sorry I’d snapped, sorry I’d sent her to her room for no reason. Sorry for dragging her down with me…
“Alex.” I turned back at Sev’s voice. His gold eyes tracked across my face. “Did you want to talk about something else?”
Embarrassment flamed up the back of my neck. “No.”
I hustled out of the kitchen before he called me out on my terrible lying skills. Fortunately, he didn’t follow me. Unfortunately, that meant I had to sort everything out with Pearl on my own.
She sat on her bed cross-legged, hunched and pouting, with the occasional overdramatic sniffle as punctuation. Daisy had beat me up the stairs and was now curled in a ball next to Pearl’s knee. She blinked at me but headbutted Pearl’s hand until she relented and petted her.
I knocked on the doorframe. “Can I come in?”
Pearl glared. “No. You were mean.”
“I know. And I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
She unfolded herself. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You didn’t do anything wrong, but I was angry about something else, and I took it out on you, and I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You can come in.”
Some of the guilt I held lifted off my shoulders as I crossed the threshold and sat next to Pearl. After a second of consideration, she burrowed her way under my arm to lean against me. I tucked the toys I’d accidentally stolen behind her.
“I like being outside,” she said.
“I know. I’m glad Sev let you go out. I’ve been keeping you too cooped up here, and I’m sorry for that too. After everything, I just want you to be safe.” I hugged her a little closer. “I promised Martin I’d take care of you.”
She raised her face to me, and her green eyes seemed enormous. “Are you?”
“Absolutely. I won’t let anything else bad happen to you, I promise.”
She kept staring. God, those questioning eyes were going to kill me. “Mr. Martin said that, but then he died.”
I sighed. “All right, I can’t protect you from everything, but I’m going to try my best. And we’re going to make Martin proud, okay? We’re going to do our best all the time.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Every day.”
She no
dded. That was enough proof for a six-year-old. After a beat of silence, she said, “Can I ask you something else?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“How did Mr. Sev get the scar down his face?”
“Well it’s not an interesting story,” I said, scraping through my brain for something innocuous to say since the truth—that he’d been cut up for being queer while in prison waiting for his murder trial—was not child-friendly. “Machining accident. A part broke off and pfft! Caught him right in the face.”
“He said he got it from a fight.”
Well, close. “Did you ask him to tell you? Because you can’t ask people about their scars. It’s rude.”
“He said he didn’t mind. I like Mr. Sev. He’s nice.”
This kid was definitely trying to kill me. “Yeah, he is.”
“He’s nice to Daisy too.”
“Of course, he is. Daisy is great.” I dared reach across and graze my fingers against the cat’s body. She gave me an eye and made a sound that wasn’t quite a growl and went back to laying quietly. Oh good, an improvement in one relationship.
As I got up to leave, Pearl tugged my hand. “Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I go back outside?”
I nodded. “Go have fun.”
She sprang up with an exclamation of joy and snatched her toys from where I’d placed them. Daisy spooked and bolted under the bed. Ignoring her, Pearl hugged me and started for the door.
“You’re nice too!” she called over her shoulder.
My face burned. Nice. I’d bullied a woman into admitting her affair and tricked a sick man into talking to me. I’d leveraged a teenage girl’s fascination with me into getting her to steal. I’d implied blackmail to a man, so he’d tell me secrets. I’d broken into a dead man’s house. Plus, I was sniping at the two people I loved most in the world. None of those things were nice, and that was just what I’d done today. Amazing how the sins piled up. What would Donnie and Martin say if they could see me now?
Chapter Eighteen
I went down the stairs cautiously, not sure what I’d find. Sev was sitting on the couch, reading. As I got closer, I realized the book was the damaged copy of the one novel I’d gotten published. He didn’t look at me as I stepped into the living room.
“Back to that old thing?” I asked.
He continued to not look at me. “If you write something new, I will read it instead.”
I glanced at my typewriter. I hadn’t worked on a project in almost a month, and I couldn’t see myself starting something new anytime soon. Stupid me, I should have gotten him something out of the library while I was over there. I should have—
No, stop. This isn’t helping.
“I thought your aunt threw it out for being smut,” I said.
The corner of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile, but he still didn’t look. “She saw sense when I reminded her what the Romans sometimes painted on their walls.” He raised his head. “Are you ready to talk now?”
“Yeah.” He shifted over, and I slumped next to him. “I’m sorry about today. And yesterday. And Saturday. I don’t even know what got into me. I—”
“Already forgiven.” He slid an arm around me. “I want to make sure you’re all right, caro.” He stared me in the eye. “I know all of this is hard.”
I almost couldn’t look at him. Yes, it was hard—insanely hard—but it couldn’t be any harder for me than it was for him. He’d left far more than me and, as he’d mentioned, had the burden of having actually killed Emma Carlisle instead of being the idiot who’d been too cowardly to do it.
I leaned against his shoulder. “I’ll be better. I promise.”
He didn’t answer, and I realized he was waiting for me to continue. But what else was there to say? I couldn’t very well start listing all my personal tragedies when I knew his tragedies had to be at least as bad as mine.
“As long as you’re all right.” He kissed my cheek. “So, should I tell you what I learned from that horrible Mrs. Gaines?”
“Is she was having an affair with Walter Trask?”
His eyebrows raised. “How did you find out?”
“Crista told me this morning.”
“Oh. Though I expect everyone knows now. Mrs. Gaines screamed at her husband when he came in. She said quite a lot of things. That she wished her husband was dead instead of Mr. Trask and she’d have done it herself if she’d gotten the chance. Such a temper!”
“Temper enough to kill a man in a fit of rage?”
“Perhaps.” Sev ran his fingers through my hair. “What would she kill him for?”
“Well, he was engaged to Judith Howe, and a couple people tell me he was at least trying to play it straight for her. Maybe he told Mrs. Gaines to get lost. Or maybe she found out he had a kid.”
“He did?”
“Does. And she lives in town. Maude Lamar, the dry-cleaning woman. Who still has your suit. Sorry.”
Sev waved a hand. “Never mind. What do you know about her?”
“Maude? Not a whole lot. She and her mom are Canadian. She came here to confront Trask, but he didn’t care.” I paused over how to say the rest. Her relationship with Judith wasn’t my secret to tell. “She fell in love and stayed.”
“Who told you?”
“She did.”
Sev shifted away from me and gaped at me like I’d lost my mind. “And you believe her?”
“What, you think she hung around for five years to kill him? Why wait that long? And if you were going to wait, why do it so obviously?”
“People are not always predictable. Many little things add up. How long was Mrs. Carlisle married to the mayor? Ten years? More?”
Well, he had a point. What proof did I have Maude hadn’t gone out to kill Trask? Just the men’s shoes? Those were easy enough to buy or steal. “I guess I have to find out if she has an alibi,” I said. “I have to get the suit tomorrow anyway. Maybe I can—”
Knocking interrupted me. I glanced out the window. Crista. This time she was expected. So much for me attempting dinner.
Sev stood, using my knee as leverage. “I assume you will be polite to her today?”
I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see me flush. “Yeah.”
“Bene.” He brushed past me to answer the door, a beaming smile on his face.
I managed through dinner without making an ass of myself, though I could have sworn she made eyes at Sev half the time. But I’d promised I’d be better, and she was gone soon enough.
The night settled in, humid and dark, and—as had become normal for me—full of nightmares: Blood and screaming. Gunshots. The flash of iron against Emma’s throat. A shattered vase of white irises. Pearl weeping in my arms. Bells—
Bells? I snapped awake, the noise having intruded on my recurring nightmare. I reached for my alarm clock instinctively, only to remember I still didn’t have one. I peered into the darkness. Had I imagined it? “Oh, the phone!” I exclaimed to myself.
Phone calls in the middle of the night were never good. I scrambled down the stairs, only to stop short to avoid colliding with Sev, who was exiting his room. He glanced at me only for a second—not even long enough for me to read his expression—and hurried to the kitchen. I followed, skidding on the wooden floor.
He snatched the receiver midring. “Pronto?”
I waited, panting. The night sank into my skin, lying heavily against the sweat refusing to dry around my neck. Why should I be so panic-stricken when everyone I cared about was accounted for?
Still, I watched Sev’s face. Bad news for him was bad news for me. His eyes, normally gold and full of easy pleasantness, darted around and narrowed. He chattered rapid Italian into the phone.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
He held up a hand to keep me quiet. Another burst of Italian; then he hung up. He shook his head in disbelief. “Someone broke into Crista’s house,” he said.
Oh. Not quite what I had been
expecting. “Wait, how did she even call? She doesn’t have a phone.”
“She’s with Miss Howe and her father. She screamed and they ran, and she ran for help.”
“If she got help, what’s she calling us for?”
“She thinks it has something to do with Mr. Trask’s death.” Sev grunted and slid past me into the hall. “I’m going to go get her.”
I wandered after him, unsure what my role in this was supposed to be. “Should I come with you?”
“What’s happening?” I looked up. Pearl clutched the rungs of the stair rail like a prisoner at the bars. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing’s wrong. Go back to bed.”
Sev ignored her and grabbed the car keys off the sideboard before ducking back into his room. He returned a few seconds later with his shoes and a dressing gown thrown over his shoulders. One of the pockets had something in it—his knife, no doubt. Pearl took in the scene and started creeping down the stairs. Daisy appeared on the landing and began her own descent. Great.
“Stay here with her,” Sev whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
He smiled briefly and squeezed my arm. When he released me, he let his fingers linger before he swept out the door. As soon as he was gone, the only thing I heard was the thumping of my heartbeat.
Pearl stared up at me, shaking. “Alex?”
“It’s fine. It’s fine,” I said as I took her hand. “Come here, we’re going to watch him from the window, okay? He’s going to get Crista. Something scared her, so she’s going to stay here.”
I scooted Pearl to the couch. Luckily for my blood pressure, I heard the Oldsmobile igniting and revving, and I had a clear view of most of the street from the window. Once the car pulled out of the drive, its lights beamed in the humid night. As they turned to pinpricks, I began thinking about how odd it was Crista’s house had been broken into.
Boiling Over Page 17
